DHL a history of Deception
I used to work for Astar. I am often asked about DHL’s operations and who really flies for them. A little DHL history is needed to tell the story. I will try to be brief.
DHL was founded by three Americans, Dalsey, Hillblum & Lynn, hence DHL. From the start they concentrated on international shipping and all but ignored the US domestic market. DHL operates worldwide as a network of divisions. Each division has separate airlines that fly for them. The pilots who fly for the US division have never been on the same seniority list with any of these other airlines.
DHL Airways, now called Astar, is DHL’s legacy carrier in the US. About 10 years ago the last remaining founder and owner of the company Larry Hillblum died. Following his death the German Post Office bought DHL. With this purchase DHL became a foreign owned company and the US division was in violation of laws prohibiting foreign ownership or control of an airline in the US. DHL Airways was separated from DHL and sold off to a group of Americans and rebranded as Astar Air Cargo. Astar became a contractor to DHL and the pilot group had a scope clause signed by DHL prior to the spin off stating that all DHL flying in the US would remain Astar flying.
About 4 years ago DHL purchased Airborne Express. They had the same problem with that airline and it was separated and became ABX Air. Astar went to court to enforce their scope clause that all DHL flying belonged to them. I believe that had they succeeded Astar and ABX would have had to merge into a single carrier and that carrier would have had scope with DHL.
However ABX lawyers did some clever legal maneuvering to exploit some technicalities and Astar’s scope clause was defeated. That was the day that Astar received the death sentence. Since then the only question has been the timing and manner of their demise. The defeat of Astar’s scope meant that they really were just a contract and DHL was free to do as it pleased.
ABX with the full support of their pilot’s union beat Astar’s scope clause and set in action a series of events that ultimately resulted in the present situation. The ABX guys were just trying to protect their jobs but the results are clear. No scope means zero job security and your company will go under. Even if the UPS/DHL deal fell apart Astar would still go under, just not now and not in this manner.
I left Astar, along with a bunch of other pilots, over a year ago because I got tired wondering when my job would end. It was a good job and it paid well but I felt it had no future, so I left. The timing of this deal is the real tragedy. If it had happened during a airline boom at least the guys could have gotten other well paying jobs.
The pilots at Astar and ABX are a good bunch. They have fought a good fight and had right on their side but it appears DHL has out maneuvered them. DHL ignored Astar’s scope and used ABX as a pawn to defeat it in court and freed themselves to do as they pleased. That is a brief history from my prospective, good luck guys.